Why Customer Reviews Can Make Better Ads Than Guesswork

In a recent LinkedIn post, Nick Bell 🔔 discusses how customer feedback can shape more persuasive advertising. This article examines Bell’s recommendations in that post: mine reviews and conversations for recurring concerns, then use customers’ own language to address them.

“Before you write another ad, read your last 50 Google reviews.”

Let customer questions set the message

Bell argues that useful ad ideas may already be present in reviews, inbox messages and sales calls. Rather than begin with a marketer’s assumptions, he suggests looking for requests or complaints that recur. As Bell notes, “When the same complaint or request keeps coming up, that’s where your next ad should start.”

That approach treats feedback as a source of insight into what potential buyers want to know or what existing customers feel was missing. Bell’s post recommends turning repeated themes into a starting point for ad copy, while leaving the specific message to be shaped by what customers actually say.

Pay attention to middling reviews

Bell singles out three-star reviews as especially revealing. In his view, these reviews can show both what customers valued and what they expected but did not receive. He writes:

“They’re the most honest about what people wanted and didn’t get.”

That focus gives businesses a way to examine the gap between a product’s promise and the customer’s experience. Bell’s point is not simply to collect praise, but to understand friction that could inform clearer or more relevant advertising.

Use customers’ words and repeat the process

Bell also urges marketers to set aside their own preferred language. “Copy their exact words, even the clumsy ones,” he advises, arguing that customers may describe a problem more clearly than a company does. In practice, that means treating customer phrasing as evidence of how people understand a need, rather than polishing every phrase into familiar marketing language.

Ask when feedback is scarce

For businesses with few reviews, Bell proposes emailing the last 20 customers and asking what nearly stopped them from buying. The post offers this as a direct way to gather objections and decision-making context when public feedback is limited.

Finally, Bell recommends revisiting the process monthly when an advertising line works, using fresh reviews to find new language and themes. His central argument is that customer feedback can inform both the content of an ad and a repeatable routine for developing one. The post places the customer’s account at the center of that work, suggesting that businesses can learn what makes a product worth buying by listening closely to the people who chose it.